Guiness Irish Wheat Clone

Recommended Posts

So far, so good. Last Saturday, I made a starter of wheat DME 1.029 OG. Pitched the washed dregs from 6 Guinness Irish Wheat bottles. I definitely smells like the Guinness Irish Wheat they were sleeping in.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

So far, so good. Last Saturday, I made a starter of wheat DME 1.029 OG. Pitched the washed dregs from 6 Guinness Irish Wheat bottles. I definitely smells like the Guinness Irish Wheat they were sleeping in.

Tomorrow I am going to pitch into another starter with OG of 1.040

I want some of that!!!! When you have enough. I can't find the beer in the store anymore.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I found some - 30 min drive away. Tastes good and I saved the yeast in the fridge.

Should I wait to get alljaAs bles emptied before I try it with malt? or make the malt up and keep adding the yeast as I drink them?

Thus is how I did mine. I poured a couple ounces of distilled water into each bottle and recapped them and set the back in the fridge. When I had 4 bottles I poured them into a sanitized canning jar and kept it in the fridge. As I finshed the six pack I added the distilled water and added to the quart canning jar. The yeast settled and I poured off most of the beer tainted distilled water a couple times and replaced it with fresh. After that I again dumped the liquid above before pitching into the quart jar of refrigerated starter wort. After pitching I moved it into the dorm fridge where I have a cider fermenting. I keep the lid loose to let the CO2 escape. So far it seems to be working.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If I was a sensitive kind of guy my feelings would be hurt. Wild yeast? I think not. Guinness' yeast? Possible. Another commercially available yeast? Also possible and perhaps more likely. Still it smells like a bunch of over ripe bananas in my dorm fridge. I might pitch one of these jars into an LBK this weekend. The jar on the left was agitated.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I don't post here often anymore. I usually only post when I see somebody trying something that can be problematic. I think this qualifies.

I posted on this topic earlier. Rick also posted (earlier) with similar information.

Nevertheless, you persisted.

Please stop this.

You're not propagating yeast from your bottles. There was no viable yeast in those bottles. There are beers that are naturally carbonated and have the yeast they were brewed with in the bottles. There are also beers that are pasteurized after brewing and then naturally carbonated with a different yeast. This beer is not either of those.

If you want to try to brew a beer with the yeast from a naturally carbonated beer, it can be done. But to do it, you need to use a beer that is naturally carbonated. I've done it as a learning experience a couple of times, but when I did it, I always checked to make sure that the beer I was using was naturally carbonated with the yeast that was used to ferment it and that it was not a yeast that was otherwise readily available. Why bottle harvest a Chico strain (US-05, Wy056, WLP001), for example (and there are beers that are naturally carbonated with the Chico strain).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to dissuade you from experimenting and learning new techniques. I'm just trying to guide you to doing so in a way that can lead to success.

I've bottle harvested yeast from Red Tail Ale and from Rogue. I only brewed a few batches from each. I did it mostly to prove that it could be done. I harvested from Red Tail Ale as a learning experience. When I harvested from Rogue, the PacMan strain wasn't readily available, so bottle harvesting was about the only way to get it.

There are lists available that will tell you what beers are naturally carbonated, and which of those are carbonated with the yeasts that were used to ferment them. I know they exist, because I found them when I was experimenting with that. I'll leave it to you to find more current lists, because I'm no longer interested in doing this.

Find one of these lists. Get a few bottles of one of these beers. Try this same experiment with one of these. I'd suggest using at least 3 bottles. More is better, but IIRC, I was successful using 3. Sanitation is even more important when harvesting yeast than the brewing. Sterilize what you can and sanitize the rest.

If you want to see the difference in harvesting yeast from a naturally carbonated beer and a beer with dregs, but no viable yeast, try harvesting some yeast from some beers you brewed and bottled, adding some sugar at bottling time for carbonation. Watch what happens when you add the live yeast from 2-3 of your beers to some wort and let it sit a few days and compare that with the (in)activity of the wort where you added the dregs from the Guinness wheat bottles. That's the difference between live yeast and dead yeast.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Earlier today I had a bottle of Anchor California Lager. Like Anchor Steam, their lager is also a krausened beer. Sure enough, there was a nice thin layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle and my first thought was "I could culture that!" Then I remembered this thread. I'm not looking to trigger another guru-brewer backlash, but it certainly seems likely that this sediment may very well contain live yeast.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Earlier today I had a bottle of Anchor California Lager. Like Anchor Steam, their lager is also a krausened beer. Sure enough, there was a nice thin layer of sediment on the bottom of the bottle and my first thought was "I could culture that!" Then I remembered this thread. I'm not looking to trigger another guru-brewer backlash, but it certainly seems likely that this sediment may very well contain live yeast.

I certainly don't know about yeast culture, but the mention of Anchor Steam strikes a chord . One time a year or so ago, I bought a six pack of Anchor Steam Bock. Ah, it was delicious and I never have seen it again, anywhere. Hate it when that happens.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I certainly don't know about yeast culture, but the mention of Anchor Steam strikes a chord . One time a year or so ago, I bought a six pack of Anchor Steam Bock. Ah, it was delicious and I never have seen it again, anywhere. Hate it when that happens.

I have not started my quest for local Anchor Steam, but the gas station a quarter-mile away has the Lager so I grabbed that. As for the question of which breweries pasteurize their product, there are a good number of craft breweries that do not. Sadly, it appears that Anchor is not on that list -- if one is to believe everything they find on the Internet, they "flash-pasteurize" all their beer.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

I have not started my quest for local Anchor Steam, but the gas station a quarter-mile away has the Lager so I grabbed that. As for the question of which breweries pasteurize their product, there are a good number of craft breweries that do not. Sadly, it appears that Anchor is not on that list -- if one is to believe everything they find on the Internet, they "flash-pasteurize" all their beer.